


We Start Them Young

by emzyyy



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Parallels, Red Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 15:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emzyyy/pseuds/emzyyy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not everything Natasha does, she does because she was told to.</p>
<p>Rated for mild adult themes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Start Them Young

**Author's Note:**

> I blame this one all on ScarJo's brilliant acting. I've wanted to write this story for a while now. This is a mix of movieverse and comicverse, so keep that in mind. Enjoy!

“Let's move, ladies!”, the guard behind the long line of twenty or so preteen girls bellowed. They marched along the cold floor a little faster, keeping their shoulders square, but their lower lips twitched in fear of the whip that the guard always carried by his side. Sometimes Natalia felt that all they did was march, even though most of their day was filled with training. The monotony of the marching just seemed to stick out in her mind. Left, right, left, right, left, right.

There had used to be at least one hundred girls in her group, but only a few hours ago, guards had swept through their usual dormitory, orderly and silently, and plucked certain girls from their beds, forcing them into clothes. These specific girls were then shuffled into a horse trailer, which was driven for so long that Natalia had actually fallen asleep, and then wound up in this unknown location with long, narrow halls and leaking pipes.

The guard that had been barking at them for the last five minutes cracked his whip hard against the floor, sending resonating vibrations through every surface in the hall. 

“Eeep!” Just behind Natalia, there came a sharp squeak. She turned around quickly. Kira clutched her mouth with both hands and her eyes shone with tears.

The guard, who the girls had come to know as Eristov, sniffed at Kira and then trudged his combat boots towards the head of the line. On the side where he wasn't walking, Natalia reached back and enveloped Kira's cold fingers in her palm and squeezed lightly.

Eristov was a large man who always smelled of liquor, with a prickly, unshaven face and deep set eyes. “Listen well,” he growled at them, “this is where you will be staying for the remainder of your training. Be sure to get a good night's rest.” Without batting and eyelid, he produced a clipboard from inside his thick coat. “Lidiya and Anja, Room One. Madina and Svetlana, Room Two. Lara and Dima, Room Three. Kira and Natalia, Room Four...”

He went on, but Natalia tugged on Kira's hand and the two scrambled into their designated room.

Natalia didn't exactly remember how, but she and Kira had bonded almost immediately after starting the program. This friendship alienated her from the other girls, because Kira was the scrawny, crybaby runt of the group who always got picked on by her superiors, but Natalia didn't care. Kira looked up to her and was in desperate need of a friend.

The small blond girl plopped herself onto one of the two beds and shook violently. Natalia sat down on the same bed, folding Kira tightly into her side in an attempt to get her to calm down.

“I'm so scared, Natalia,” she whimpered. “The other girls are so brave, but I am so very scared.”

Natalia petted her friend's hair in silence.

“You are the bravest of all of them, Natalia,” Kira went on, half in awe and half in self-loathing. “Are you not scared?”

If she were to tell the truth, Natalia would have said that she was growing just as scared as Kira. She had been brought into the program by Ivan Petrovitch, her father's colleague and closest friend, who was also involved with it. He had told her that it was a type of boarding school. Initially, Natalia was nervous, but she trusted Ivan, and she knew that as long as he was close, she would never be in danger. But, as time passed, the training grew more and more rigorous and Natalia saw less and less of Ivan. She was lucky just to catch a glimpse of his shoulder as he was hurrying to who knows where once every few weeks. And now, the girls had been moved to a strange, new place and she had no idea where Ivan was. She was as scared as she had ever been, but she was not about to admit that to Kira.

The redheaded girl brushed a kiss against her friend's cheek and hopped off of the bed.

“You heard Eristov,” she reminded weakly, hustling into the nightgown that was left for her, “we should get to sleep.”

XXX

After an hour or two, Natalia heard Kira's soft, deep breathing from the bed across the room to indicate that she had fallen under. She, however, was still awake. She lay facing the wall, quiet and still, every so often a tear falling across the bridge of her nose and onto her pillow. Even back in the regular dormitory, she never truly slept much – only about one to three hours a night. She had made it more than once not even sleeping at all. She never wanted to sleep, because every time she closed her eyes she was back in Sao Paulo. She saw the flames and heard the wails of the sirens and felt the cold water from the puddles lash against her legs as she was pushed and dragged away from the scene.

Natalia's shoulder's tightened as she heard a high-pitched, metallic moan and a dim light was cast upon the wall. Kira was still sleeping.

Someone was in their room.

Natalia remained still as a corpse, clenching her jaw and perking her ears to the low heaving breaths that steadily grew closer. She felt cold as all the blood drained from her face.

The throaty sighs could now be felt on the back of her neck. Natalia could feel herself begin to physically shake. She felt rough, calloused fingers gently touch her hair and then slowly graze her pale arm.

Then, she felt those same fingers lift up the collar of her nightgown and something warm and slimy touched the base of her neck. It was a tongue.

Natalia's elbow jarred back in reply, bending the nose it came into contact with into a new shape. She reached her hands up and grabbed the head of her attacker and willed all of her strength to push it away. There was a sharp crack of bone and a scream of agony.

Adrenaline the only thing running through her veins, Natalia scrambled off of her bed and continued to deliver blows to the figure. A punch to the shoulder. A kick to the stomach. Another punch to the jaw. A knee to the crotch. She even bit his wrist just because she could. With each attack, the stranger screamed louder and Natalia found herself screaming as well, hot tears blurring her vision but still expertly delivering every blow.

The intruder fell to the floor as the door was slammed wide open. In the light, Natalia could see that the person who had placed their tongue on her neck was Eristov. She turned around sharply, more tears spilling onto the floor. There in the doorway stood an impressively tall man with a double-breasted coat and a scar, who was seething at what he saw in front of him, and Ivan Petrovitch at his heels. Natalia was completely frozen. In her cold sweat, the only thing moving was her heart under her skin, pumping more than forty miles per hour.

The tall man's stone mouth barely moved as he retched softly, “Get Eristov on his feet. I'll take the girl.”

XXX

They took her to a poorly lit room far away from the hallway where the bedrooms were. The floor was concrete and the walls were solid steel. All there was was a long table, a single chair, and a broken lamp that swung from the ceiling with a haunting creak. Natalia was pushed down hard into the chair, which wheezed slightly under her pressure. The man with the scar (Natalia noted that the others called him Toropov and that he was higher above in rank than either of them) began to pace in front of her. He was a silent stone of a man, but Natalia could hear the anger in his breathing. Eristov stood at a close distance, watching Toropov with the eyes of a Rottweiler, not glancing towards the young girl at all. During the exchange of rooms, he had developed a limp and gotten a cloth to hold to his bloody face. The silhouette of Ivan could barely be made out as he stood against the far wall, not moving at all. Natalia searched for his eyes in the shadows, but found nothing but darkness.

Toropov stopped pacing and carefully pressed his hands down onto the table that separated Natalia and him, and fiercely glared down into her eyes.

“So what happened?” he snarled, the gleam of his bared teeth giving Natalia an uncomfortable shiver.

“The little bitch tried to kill me, that's what happened!” Eristov instantly retorted, hobbling over towards his boss's side. Toropov held out his strong hand as a signal for him to stay away, not even looking at him. He spoke again.

“You have five seconds to tell me why you were deliberately attacking your superior before I ring your neck.”

Natalia swallowed, her mouth gone dry. Her vision was swimming with anger – anger at Eristov for what he had tried to do; anger at Toropov for deliberately ignoring what Eristov was doing in her room in the first place. She gripped the sides of the chair in her white fists. She choked on each word as it fell from her mouth, glaring unwaveringly into Toropov's steely eyes.

“He wanted me.”

Toropov was still for a moment, processing what he had just been told. Then, he quickly retracted his hands from where they rested on the table and began to pace again, tenser than before.

“Nothing you say is going to get you out of here,” he almost chuckled, and Natalia felt a strange cold running through her blood again. “You think that by making up some bullshit lies that we're somehow going to let you go. What you don't understand is this is your life now. You can never escape. Now why were you disobeying Eristov?”

“I was not disobeying; he wanted me,” Natalia pressed, louder and grittier than before.

Toropov snapped, turning around and slamming his fists down hard onto the table, towering over her like an animal.

“STOP LYING TO ME!”

Natalia's blood was pulsing at an alarming rate. She shoved the table into Toropov's stomach. He let out a sharp cry as she bolted to the other side of the room. In a flash, she reached under Ivan's coat where she knew he kept his gun and, through her brimming tears, pulled the trigger, aimed squarely at Toropov's chest. He fell to the floor with a bang.

Eristov was at his side in an instant, weight resting on the leg that wasn't limping. He began shouting for help and checking for vital signs. Natalia could hear a low wheeze as Toropov fought for his last moments.

Ivan came from behind her and ripped the gun out of her hands. The young girl tried to look into his eyes, but his palm made sharp contact with the side of her face in one quick _thwack!_ She crumpled to her knees. She clutched her cheek where the skin had been broken and choked on her own raggedy breath. Tears stung her eyes. She screwed them shut in trying to relieve the sudden nausea.

The Ivan that she knew was no longer alive.

She buried her face in her hands, trying to slow her heart rate. Every place that the gun had touched her was engulfed in fire, yet she was shivering as if she were frostbitten. She had handled weapons before in training, but never like this. She had never actually shot someone. It was always a sheet of paper or a doll stuffed with sand. Never a real, living person. She never had to see that blood spill onto the floor. Never.

Faceless guards soon swarmed the room, tip toeing around Toropov's body. Keeping an eye on Natalia, Petrovitch pulled two of the guards to the side. He whispered, but she could read his lips perfectly.

“Take the girl to be washed. I want her fully turned by sunrise; no excuses.”

_The End_


End file.
